Chapter 340: Talent

In addition, there were many “residual materials” left over from the Fengcheng. Many dilapidated goods were retrieved from the Planning Commission’s warehouse, which had been collected from the ship at the time: a Nieer brand upright piano, a broken accordion, three guitars without strings, a broken karaoke set from the entertainment room, complete with an LD player; a Sansui sound system with a record player, radio, cassette player, and CD player; a Toshiba VCR, a Sony 21-inch color TV… and finally, two large boxes of audio tapes, video tapes, CDs, LDs, and vinyl records.

“These things are a history of Chinese popular culture from the 70s to the 90s,” Dongfang Ke couldn’t help but sigh while sorting through them. The oldest tapes in the collection were not officially released but were songs dubbed onto blank tapes made by some unknown small factory in Hong Kong. On the yellowed label paper was faded, beautiful handwriting in a style that would be considered very nice by 21st-century standards: “Teresa Teng.”

As for the dubbed VHS tapes, many had nothing written on the labels. When played on a VCR, they were all blurry “yellow tapes” of unknown origin and date.

The songs and movies on these tapes had little value—most could be found on the hard drives in the Planning Commission’s warehouse. Therefore, after being inspected, they were all transferred to the IT department to be used as data storage devices. The other items were officially handed over to the Ministry of Propaganda and allocated to the Experimental Art Troupe.

For Okamoto, the biggest gain was a set of lights and a control console from the Fengcheng’s entertainment room. Although almost all the light bulbs were broken, at least the whole set was still there. It could be used for stage lighting in a pinch.

These things could probably still be used after some repairs. The Planning Commission also allocated some new equipment. In particular, a decent recording studio was specially built, and even post-production processing equipment was put together.

The recording studio itself was built with local methods. There were few people in the county town, and there was little industry around, so the environmental noise was low. Although there were no modern sound-absorbing materials, it was not difficult to make them. Kapok, paper pulp, and other materials were already widely used in Lingao’s construction. As for professional equipment and software, the Planning Commission had already prepared for it. Not only was there stock, but it was also quite professional.

The recording and mixing equipment was not actually that expensive: a good computer, plus ten thousand yuan for a microphone, sound card, microphone preamp, and monitor speakers would be enough to produce a record. As for mixing, it could be completely solved with software. There were a large number of software effectors circulating in the professional circle, with all kinds of reverb, equalization, compression, excitation, pitch correction, rhythm correction… everything was available. Not only could they beautify the sound, but they could also make a tone-deaf singer sound as perfect as a professional singer.

Although the sound quality couldn’t compare to top-tier hardware, ordinary people couldn’t tell the difference in quality at all. In this time and space, that kind of sound quality was already at a god-tier level.

Moreover, recording equipment was actually very durable. If you weren’t too particular, the sound quality would still be fine after a dozen years. With the spare parts in the Planning Commission’s warehouse, the recording studio could be sustained for thirty or forty years without a problem.

The only problem was that Lingao could not yet produce tape recorders and tapes, nor could it produce gramophones and records. This recording studio was somewhat of a “hero with no place to use his skills.”

For a time, the Central Experimental Art Troupe was well-equipped and its popularity grew considerably, giving Okamoto a sense of being “well-staffed and well-equipped.” Dongfang Ke didn’t spoil his mood, letting him hum “thinking back to when my team first started” and bustle about, while he himself continued to do the accounting for the finance and economics circle.

However, after today’s manpower allocation meeting, Okamoto found that his experimental art troupe lacked the most important asset: “people.”

Liu Shuixin had been officially transferred in. But no matter how capable she was, she was only one person. As for other Yuanlao with artistic expertise, it wasn’t that there were none—there were quite a few Yuanlao with various “talents” in playing instruments, singing, and so on, but every department was short-staffed. It was as difficult as ascending to heaven to transfer them to full-time positions. Okamoto lobbied everywhere and only managed to secure a few “part-time” positions.

There was a shortage of teaching staff, and there were also few suitable performing arts talents. Okamoto was eager to put on an opera or something—even if he couldn’t do something as grand as an Italian opera, a light opera would be fine. Just as he was preparing to roll up his sleeves and get to work, some idol group popped up to compete with him for resources.

Today was the third round of selection for the idol group, and the “star” of the art troupe, Liu Shuixin, had to be a judge. The thought of the already tight teaching resources being split in half by some idol group made Okamoto vent his frustrations to Dongfang Ke in his office.

“Well, Liu Shuixin is the only professional talent in our Senate who is skilled in both singing and dancing and can also act,” Dongfang Ke said, not as “righteously indignant.” He was listening to Bach’s “French Suites” while flipping through the account books Cheng Dong had given him, making a completely non-nutritious statement that felt like pure perfunctory.

“Will you die if you do a little less accounting!” Okamoto finally exploded. “You’re the artistic director, for crying out loud!”

“Well, I’m the deputy director,” Dongfang Ke continued in his non-nutritious tone, putting down the account book. “Okamoto, you’ve set up this troupe. You must have a goal.”

“Of course, it’s to prepare for a light opera…”

Dongfang Ke shook his head. “Well, a light opera is not bad. But in that case, our experimental troupe is too high-end…”

Okamoto understood what he meant. Under the current conditions, putting on a light opera was a fool’s dream. Rehearsing a new play, even for a professional artistic group in the 21st century, would take half a year to a year of preparation.

“Of course, it’s not something that can produce results immediately. My meaning is to train the actors first. Singing, dancing, art design, and so on, all start training from the most basic things, lay a foundation, and then start a project in a few years when the conditions are better.”

“That’s too slow, and we don’t have that many resources to invest. That idol group over there can be on stage singing in a few months. Whether the natives can understand is another matter, but at least they can get the Yuanlao excited when they appear at the annual meeting. What do we have? Ask the girls to go up and strike a few poses?”

“Rehearsing a few songs and a few dances is always possible.”

“Well, let’s focus on that. Okamoto, didn’t you study vocal music? First, give the girls some training in national-style singing. Then have Teacher Liu teach some folk dances, classical dances, and so on. The troupe will be able to perform by the middle of the year. At least it’s an achievement.”

“Is this related to light opera?” Okamoto was still thinking about his The Merry Widow.

Dongfang Ke laughed, a rare occurrence. “No. But if you can’t produce some results quickly, your light opera will have no chance of being staged.”

“Alright.” Okamoto knew Dongfang Ke was right. What Fang Fei said to Wu Ciren about “results within a year” was also meant for him. Without results, how could he ask for resources in the future?

“Alright, let’s get close to the masses first,” Okamoto said. “Do you have any other brilliant ideas?”

“No brilliant ideas. Just a small opinion. Let’s set up an orchestra first. A symphony orchestra is probably not possible. Whatever instruments we have, we’ll use them. We’ll train some musicians—no matter what you plan to do in the future, an orchestra is the basic foundation. I can teach people to play the piano first. I don’t have a performance-level skill, but I’m at a grade 10 level of the Music Association.” Dongfang Ke frowned. “Our most awkward problem is that there are no truly professional-level performers among the Yuanlao. My piano skills are not to be mentioned, and Liu Shuixin’s piano is not much better, probably just at an accompaniment level. Lando played and sang at the last annual meeting and mesmerized a few female Yuanlao—it looked very impressive, but in fact, he could just play it. There are even fewer orchestral instruments. Except for violinists, we can’t count on the Europeans—at the same time, Europe seems to be still in the early Baroque period… the systems are different… so we can’t train high-quality musicians… I feel like we can only teach the basic skills and then let the native students listen to recordings to get a feel for it…”

“What you’re saying is a bleak picture. At best, we can only hold a low-level solo concert. What’s the point of talking about an orchestra?”

“This will be an achievement,” Dongfang Ke said. “If you want quick results, you can set up a folk music orchestra…”

“That’s not a bad idea: Twelve Girls Band.”

“That’s a performance-based group, essentially no different from the idol group Wu Ciren wants to create. They mainly sell visual effects.” Dongfang Ke immediately made a strict distinction. “If we’re going to do it, we should do it properly and create a real folk music orchestra. We don’t lack the instruments or the talent—at least it’s easy to get them.”

“I remember Yang Yun said that there were people from theater troupes among the refugees taken in during Operation Engine. There should be professional musicians among them. We can transfer them over,” Okamoto said with interest. “If that doesn’t work, it’s not difficult to scout for musicians in Guangzhou and Jiangnan.”

“Perhaps,” Dongfang Ke nodded. “Well, speaking of which, I saw a soldier from the Garrison Battalion playing the erhu at a guard post outside Bairen City last time. I stood there and listened for a long time. His skill is definitely at a performance level…”

“Oh? What’s his name? Transfer him over!”

“I didn’t ask.”

Okamoto was floored. Not giving up, he asked what day it was, planning to go to the Garrison Battalion to look for him. No matter what, he had to dig him out first.

“There’s also a Yuanlao who is now a music teacher at Fangcaodi. Why don’t you dig him out too?”

“There’s such a talent?!”

“I only found out about this expert when I was in charge of setting up the recording studio. He came up with the entire plan for the recording studio. A professional talent, much more impressive than a second-rate enthusiast like me…”

“Why didn’t you say so earlier?”

“You didn’t ask me.”

Okamoto decided not to dwell on this issue. “What’s his name? Don’t tell me you didn’t ask again!”

“It seems to be something like Nangong…”

“Damn, we’re so awesome here: Dongfang, Okamoto, Nangong, all high-class compound surnames.”

“Okamoto is not a compound surname—it’s a Japanese surname.”

“We’ll talk about that later,” Okamoto said. “Let’s transfer the person to the art troupe first!”